Honey and Vinegar
by pyrrhicvictoly
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale are both saddled with apprentices, which seriously puts a crimp in their style (or lack thereof). Sollux became a demon because of his anger at, of all things, the mistreatment of honeybees. Eridan doesn't believe in angels despite being one himself.
1. Chapter 1

Anthony J. Crowley was not so much ambitious as he was, to use the modern lingo, a huge troll. In the years following the Apocalapse* and Adam's Hard Reset on the Game Console of the Universe, Above and Below had returned to business as usual. This meant that Crowley had returned to business as usual - that is, feeding ducks in the park and racking up commendations for his clever use of trolling to bring to the surface the ugliest, most petulant sides of humanity.

One of his latest achievements of note was the creation of Twitter, and thus Twitter Flame Wars. Aziraphale had, as per their Arrangement, countered this by encouraging more people to post pictures of their pets doing silly things to brighten others' days. Crowley had then countered this counter by whispering to tabloids and celebrity rags that the public would like nothing more than to hear about the Kardashians at least once a day and twice on Saturdays**.

It was so easy to receive commendations in this age of excess. Hell's bureaucracy finally caught up to human credit card companies and began offering "Point Perks" for each human soul tarnished by a demon's misdeeds. Crowley had since gained over 300,000,000 points on his Satanic Express Platinum Hellcard, and the reward for this tier was an apprentice/slave. Slavery had been out of style for centuries, so Crowley opted for an apprentice. The process included filling out a 50 page matchmaking survey in triplicate, officially declaring his intent to acquire an apprentice and having this signed, stamped, sealed, signed again and notarized and finally apostilled, each step taking place in a different department for which there was a long queue, a dispassionate receptionist, and a set of increasingly incompetent managers who must be yelled at no less than three times in order to process something correctly. Hell's bureaucracy certainly had come a long way since Crowley had first had it implemented.

Crowley was now back in his flat, waiting to greet this young demon whom he would take under his wing. On one hand, he was looking forward to training a demon who would have some blessed _creativity_ for once. The denizens of Below tended to be nasty brutes with no concept of subtlety whatsoever, and spending a lot of time with said nasty brutes eventually sapped the younger demons of that wonderful human ingenuity they'd had in their previous lives. Crowley's apprentice, should he prove worthy, would be a triumphant rescue case. A new hope for young demonkind!

On the other hand, given that this was Below he was dealing with, they probably had in mind to stick him with someone… _difficult_.

Either way, a sharp first impression was of the utmost importance. Crowley himself was always sharp, so if there was any slack, it would be due to one of his plants.

"Listen up, you lot," he said as he brandished the spray bottle. "A _guest_ is stopping by today and you'd better be on your best behavior. If I so much as find a leaf-" He paused and spritzed a not-as-perky-as-could-be philodendron; it immediately shaped up. "-out of place, I'll cut you into _mulch_. Think about it before you try to disobey. You wouldn't want your friends to live out the rest of their lives on a bed of your remains, would you?"

The plants shivered in fear, each making an effort to green up as Crowley's gaze roamed over them. He spritzed them a few more times for good measure before sauntering off to sit on his chic leather sofa, legs crossed in a pose that exuded nonchalance and casual jerkassery on a level only found in briefcase-toting, richer-than-thou yuppies at Starbucks***.

With a wholly underwhelming pop and accompanying tiny plume of smoke, the guest arrived in Crowley's living room. It was a skinny demon who stumbled as he poofed in, unused as he was to his new corporation.

"Hey, is this the residence of a Mr Crawly?" the young demon asked. He - for the corporation appeared male - had a horrendous lisp that grated on Crowley's nerves. Worse even than being called Crawly was _Mithter_ Crawly.

"It's _Crowley_. Anthony J. Crowley."

"Sure thing, Mr Crowley. Or would you prefer 'boss'?"

The lisping in both those titles was a daunting prospect. "Anthony, please."

"Anthony, okay. Pleasure to meet you and all that. I'm to be your new apprentice. Name's Sollux Captor."

"Er… Tholluckth or Sollux…" At the mortification on the other demon's face, he quickly corrected himself. "Right. The latter. Gotcha."

Crowley made a show of looking over his apprentice and tsking in mild annoyance at what he saw. The youngster was in a teenage body and was skinny to the point of appearing emaciated. His clothes were a wreck: a rumpled hoodie in an ugly mustard color and worn, mismatched sneakers, one red and one blue. He wore red and blue 3-D glasses even though they were nowhere near the cinema. This would not do. Crowley voiced his displeasure. "I specifically requested someone stylish."

Sollux poofed a handbook into existence, and along with it a copy of Crowley's matchmaking form. He flipped through them and said, "It says here on page six that you'd prefer an apprentice of like kind."

"Yes, like kind as in stylish, a cool cat, hip, fashionable, with it. A right flash bastard, just like me."

"Like kind as in alike in demon nomenclature. It's in the small print."

"Speak English to me, kid. No habla legalese. Or lisp."

"Fuck you. LISP is a perfectly good programming language."

"I don't speak nerd, either." The kid got points for wit and attitude. No points for being a nerd.

Sollux poofed the books back out of existence. "It means you get stuck with me because we're both snakes. Or did you somehow manage to overlook this fan-fucking-tastic forked tongue of mine? Really convenient, that. Can't even say my own name most days."

"That somehow trumps all the other 50 pages of preferences I marked down?"

"Well, this is Hell you're dealing with."

"It's outrageous! The least they could do to reward their best field agent is with an actual reward."

"Stop being a whiny asshole. No one cares."

"Seriously, kid, who signed off on this?"

Sollux shrugged. "Hastur, Duke of Hell. He said something about having a grudge against you but he can't remember why."

Didn't it just figure.

* * *

*Also variously known as the Nopocalypse, The End of the World (not!), The End of the World (psych!), and Armageddoff.

**The Kardashians were an evil unto themselves, and one that Crowley had no hand in creating. He did, however, admire them for the ruthless efficiency in which they inspired low-level hatred in just about everyone, and he did not decline the commendation he was offered for their existence.

***...ordering Iced Quad Venti Non-Fat Sugar-Free-Syrup Caramel Macchiatos with Extra Whip and Chocolate Sauce, the rich bastard equivalent of a Diet Coke with a Super Sized Big Mac meal at McD's. Humans outdid themselves every time.


	2. Chapter 2

Meanwhile, in a dusty Soho bookshop, the sign flipped to 'closed', the proprietor, one Mr Ezra Fell, was entertaining an old friend, one Colonel Jake Harley. Mr Fell had served tea, and the two got to talking as gentlemen do, about the weather and other such pleasantries, and then about Colonel Harley's family.

"Take a gander at this, old chap," Colonel Harley said, his salt and pepper mustache practically twitching with glee. "It's my Jadey, all grown up." He handed over a photo of a bright-eyed, buck-toothed young woman at her University commencement ceremony.

Mr Fell admired the photo and thought back to the days when little Jade Harley visited the bookstore with her grandfather. She was a pleasant girl who, unlike many other children her age, had never asked for comics or tried to stick chewing gum into the books when they thought no one was watching. "Oh my, your granddaughter has certainly grown into a lovely lass."

Colonel Harley preened at the praise. "And smart as a whip, too! Physics, engineering, astronomy, divination, astroprojection - she does it all. That's mighty important for a witch of her caliber, especially in this day and age."

"Yes, of course. You must tell her to visit some time. I've many books of prophecy for her to borrow that she may find useful in honing her gift."

The conversation had, at this juncture, taken a turn for what an ordinary bystander would consider to be the absurd. However, Mr Ezra Fell was in fact Aziraphale, an angel of the Lord and former Guardian of the East Gate of Eden, and Colonel Harley had been dead for quite some time*.

In life, the good Colonel had been a regular patron of this very bookstore; not to purchase, but to sell ancient tomes he had come upon in his travels. He had never known that the owner of the store was anything other than a human who aged very, very gracefully. In death, the good Colonel ascended to Heaven and immediately descended again to be guardian angel to his beloved granddaughter. Being a low-level human-born angel, he was not granted permission for a corporeal body of his own and his spirit instead liked to flicker through various memories of what he thought he ought to look like.

Colonel Harley's spirit flickered just then, and in the place of the distinguished soldier was a young man of no more than twenty. "Before I forget," Jake said, "on my last trip Above, I overheard some of our fine brothers and sisters speaking of a new mentorship program, and I thought it might concern you."

"Is that so? Do go on, my dear."

"They said it was to pair some greenhorns with the most experienced members of our ranks. You know, to see that they learn something of what it's like to have those sorts of duties and whatnot. Seemed to me your name would be a natural shoe-in to have on the list of mentors, being that you've been on Earth the longest of anybody from, well, from anywhere."

Aziraphale's lips formed a moue in contemplation. "I'm not sure our superiors have the best impression of me. You know how they are about The Rules."

"Oh yes, yes, I agree. The senior members Up There can be so set in their ways. No sense of adventure, I say."

"Quite so. And as such, I fear they would be hesitant in allowing me to be mentor to impressionable young minds." He sounded regretful, but in truth, Aziraphale was not so keen on taking on any extra responsibilities. He had grown complacent after millenia of a similar lifestyle as Heaven's field agent. Day in, day out, he kept an eye on the humans and in a normal week had only the one supernatural visitor: Crowley, who shared his exact same job, but for the other side.

The thought of having another angel to converse with on a regular basis wasn't unpleasant, but Aziraphale was a bookish and rather introverted individual who valued his privacy. Having old friends such as Jake Harley drop by was wonderful, but it was so precisely because the occasions were sparse enough not to be wearying. He wouldn't know what to do if he were shadowed by a young angel all the time, especially if said young angel were to be a stickler for The Rules. Thankfully, Aziraphale thought, his reputation in Heaven wasn't good enough for this to happen.

Colonel Harley thought differently. "Pish posh! There are many of us lesser angels who admire you and believe you would be the most capable mentor, Mr Fell. I know for certain I heard your name mentioned. Why, perhaps a slew of soon-to-be-mentees asked for you by name!" He flickered into his thirties, his fifties, his eighties, and back into his late teens all in the course of this speech. His gung-ho, go-get-'em spirit remained the same throughout the ages, as did his buck-toothed grin.

While it was nice to see someone had such faith in him, Jake Harley's enthusiasm could be taken too far. His boundless optimism had the added effect of making him - if Aziraphale were to be entirely honest and perhaps a bit harsher with his words than he usually liked - objectively _stupid_. It was therefore a good rule of thumb to ignore most of what he said on any given day.

Aziraphale opted to nod along politely. Tea was sipped, scones were ingested, and that line of conversation was dropped before Jake could work himself up in a frenzy of "You should show them what's what! A good ol' bout of fisticuffs ought to put your snobby superiors in their place!"

It wasn't long before Colonel Harley received a summons from his granddaughter who, being a witch, could do those kinds of things. He flew off into the distance with one last dramatic "Tally ho!"

A fine man, Colonel Harley. Not the brightest flaming sword in the angelic arsenal, but a fine man indeed.

Now that his visitor had gone on his way, Aziraphale allowed himself to slouch a bit more comfortably. He didn't bother flipping the shop sign back to 'open' because, well, the less customers the better. Aziraphale magicked himself another pot of hot water and set about making a fresh cup of tea. There was a new author whose books he had been meaning to read, and now was the perfect time. With tea to his right and snacks to his left, Aziraphale materialized his copy of Complacency of the Learned and finally set about to read the tale of the Wizard Zazzerpan and his villainous charge, Calmasis.

He had gotten no further than the opening paragraph when his tea began to ripple without any outside force. The voice of the Voice of God came forth. "Have you considered acquiring an intern?" asked the Metatron. Being the Voice of God had many perks, and though being the Ears of God was not part of the job description, the Metatron had an uncanny ability to eavesdrop.

Aziraphale was at a loss not for the words themselves, but for things to sip as he got around to politely wording a reply. He settled for nibbling a chocolate biscuit. After a brief pause, he said to the teacup, "I thought it was a _mentorship_ program."

"It was, until Raziel threw a hissy fit over how internship sounded much more professional," said the Metatron. "God doesn't care either way."

"Hmm," said Aziraphale.

There was a lull in the conversation until the Metatron picked back up. "Well, I suppose you're not going to bite. In that case, I'm here to inform you that you're to have an intern whether you like it or not."

Aziraphale sighed and bid farewell to his peaceful lifestyle. "But why me? If anything, I should think you'd want the young angels to be as little like me as possible."

"Orders, you see. All the eldest among the Host, Seraphim and above, are to have interns." The Metatron paused as he often did when deciphering one of the Lord's messages. "I suppose there's no harm in you knowing. You'd find out soon enough after meeting your intern…"

"Yes?"

"There's been a switch. The intern you'll be getting, Eridan Ampora, has proven to be… _difficult_. All who've worked with him have sent him away. The Lord has told me to assign him as I see fit; a change of scenery will do him good."

"Ah. The Lord's ways are truly ineffable." What else was he to say to the knowledge that his intern was the reject? In any other case, Aziraphale would think, "Oh poor dear," but knowing how much patience angels usually had, it would have to be a real piece of work to frustrate them so.

"He's not a reject," the Metatron said as if he'd read Aziraphale's mind. "Not really. Uriel said he was very talented with wrath and smiting."

Oh, joy of joys. Even the Angel of Wrath had had a turn and gotten rid of young Mr Ampora. And to top it all off, he was good at _smiting_ of all things. Aziraphale hadn't done any smiting since… Er, since he had "lost" his flaming sword after the Garden of Eden.

"God does not play games with his creations," the Metatron said. Aziraphale recalled him saying that a couple decades ago while they danced the Apocalypso. The voice of the Voice of God had wavered in uncertainty then as it did now, which Aziraphale took to mean that God did, indeed, play games with his creations. Circuitous, paradoxical, ineffable games.

The teacup rippled one last time and went silent.

The tea was cold. A shame, such a waste of good darjeeling.

Aziraphale sighed again, wondering if he should attempt to tidy up the shop.

In the next instant, there was a young man sitting in the seat occupied by Colonel Harley a few minutes ago. He arrived with no fanfare - no sound, no sparkles, not even a shaft of light. Aziraphale could see he was immaculately groomed from head to toe to neatly folded wings. He wore a gray suit with purple pinstripes, sharply cut and almost reminiscent of a certain Demon. There was a matching purple streak in his slicked back hair, styled in a way that was also almost reminiscent of a certain Demon**.

"Mr Ampora, I presume?"

The younger angel crossed his arms and glared. He spoke with a wavy accent. "You ain't gonna break me."

* * *

* Contrary to the battledress his spirit still liked to wear at times, Colonel Harley did not die in WWII. He survived past the war and continued to have a long and fulfilling life of adventure. He became an amateur archeologist and made many trips to explore the ruins of ancient civilizations, even going so far as to eventually forsake Britain - and indeed the entirety of civilization - for a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Then, in his last years, he was called back by his children who feared he was going senile. They hired a live-in nurse who was tragically uninformed as to the Colonel's severe peanut allergy.

** In a small corner of Aziraphale's mind - one that was borne of too many Mills and Boon paperbacks*** and which would be locked away as soon as it surfaced - he wondered if Eridan Ampora wouldn't be the spitting image of his and Crowley's child if they had ever made that much of an effort.

*** When one is a bookworm and has lived for millennia, there are times one suffers from a severe drought of good new reading material. And when one is a bookshop owner, there are times one is asked by potential customers if there are contemporary romance novels for sale. Then, assuming one is a curious individual, one will read said contemporary romance novels one is being requested to stock. That will have been a mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

The penthouse flat was a veritable jungle in places. Crowley had lush foliage growing on most every surface in certain rooms. The sunroom in particular no longer let in any sun.

However, it was more of a jungle now than ever, and this was an unwelcome change. There were... _flowers_. Flowers were so soft and sweet. Angelic, even. They were utterly unacceptable in a demon's home, and yet he had been entrenched in a battle with those messy pollen sacks for days now.

It began when Crowley invited that lisping geek into his home. Their interactions that first night had been limited to Crowley saying, "All right, I'm going to bed. Your room is down the hall. Don't touch my things." The next morning, his army of ficuses had been infiltrated by a single cheery yellow plumeria. Crowley immediately tossed it in the rubbish bin outside and went to yell at his wayward apprentice but, when he passed by the spot where the plumeria had been, he was greeted with two orchids. Demons are petty, spiteful beings. A battle of constant one-upmanship was born that day.

From then on, the flowers had been steadily marching through his home, a nigh unstoppable force of scent and color. Blooming tropical houseplants such as orchids and plumerias - which were tolerable in the right conditions - soon gave way to jasmine, roses, lavender, daisies. Petal-dropping _menaces _is what they were. And where was said wayward apprentice? After Crowley had threatened one of his precious begonias with a blowtorch, he had fled to a new base of operations. Sollux now commandeered the sunroom and had barricaded the doors to his new fort. He had been in there for two days.

Crowley pounded on the door. "Come out from there, you traitorous lout!"

"No," said Sollux, his petulant voice muffled by the door.

"This is _my _home and your disrespect will not be tolerated!" _You show some respect for your father this instant, young man!_ If Crowley was to sound any more parental, he was going to discorporate himself by doing a fancy pirouette onto the Go- Sata- Manchester-blessed M25 London Orbital Motorway.

"Screw you, AJ. You're just going to find some shitty reason to send me back to Hell. I'm not stupid and I'm not going back there."

Crowley considered playing nice, tempting him out with dinner at the Ritz or whatever it was that moody teenagers liked. Greasy pizza, maybe. He also considered teleporting into the sunroom, but he wasn't one for physical fights if he could help it.

"You better not have messed with my plants, punk."

"They're fine, jeez. I'm taking care of them." _Along with their new flowery friends_ went unspoken.

Crowley was about to say something biting about Sollux's inability to care for himself, but he heard something just then, from beyond the doors. A hum of sorts, but not like a computer or any other piece of technology. It was a low, droning... buzz.

"Sollux...? Sollux, what is that buzzing sound? It had better not be what it sounds like."

"Well, what's it sound like, dumbass?"

"It sounds like-"

"Because it's-"

"Bees," they said in unison.

Crowley slowly spun around on his heel. He began walking to the front door, his strides getting faster as he went until he was nearly sprinting out of the apartment building. The door was hastily magicked shut; Crowley raced to his beloved Bentley.

He needed a drive. And possibly a visit to a certain angel. They had holy water and things of that nature. Great demon exterminators, angels were. Perhaps Aziraphale could be convinced to fumigate Crowley's flat with his grace. Flush out demonic bees and all that.

-oOo-

Aziraphale's interactions with his charge were less volatile, owing not to the fact that angels as a whole were morally superior to demons (they weren't), but because Aziraphale was not one for escalation. For example, when Eridan had said, "You ain't gonna break me," Aziraphale had responded, "Of course not, my dear. I'd much prefer you in one piece."

This was not to say that things were going well.

The bookshop magically expanded to accommodate one more person; Eridan spent most of his time sulking in his room. When he wasn't there, he was sulking in the corner by the military and history books, or he was nagging about how the bookshop needed to be modernized and Aziraphale needed to burn his wardrobe to rid himself of the Tartan Plague.

"What's wrong with tartan?"

"Everything's wrong with tartan. You should let me give you a makeover. I'll make you _fierce_."

Aziraphale was fine with this… except that he wasn't. He had thought for a while that he could be fine with this since neither angel was particularly fond of The Rules, and since Eridan also liked books*. There was no reason they couldn't get along… It's just that he hadn't been expecting his intern to break quite so many of The Rules; perhaps even all of them!

To put it simply, Eridan was a militant atheist.

Aziraphale had met many atheists and liked many of them, too. He firmly believed that humans were innately good, and that just being an atheist did not mean one was on a rocket slide to Below. Atheists came in all shapes and sizes; they were tall and short, fat and thin, lechers and prudes, smart, stupid, and everything in between. Some were curmudgeonly, angry with their lot in life and only using their atheism as an excuse to lash out at the world. And yet others were the most joyous people Aziraphale had ever encountered, who had a wondrous sense of awe and humility at the smallest and largest the universe had to offer. They were just _human_, which encompassed all of these things and more.

Angels, however, were by definition not atheist. Except Eridan, somehow. This called into question just how he had become an angel in the first place, and also what it meant to be an angel at all. What exactly was the essence of an angel if not having Faith in the Creator? It made sense now, why the others had been so quick to foist Eridan off onto Aziraphale. Heaven didn't take well to challengers to the status quo.

Nonetheless, Aziraphale tried his best to be a gracious mentor. Unfortunately, his attempts at serious conversation tended to end up like this:

"So Uriel took you smiting? How was that?"

"Okay, I guess. I took down a coupla so-called demons who were trying to possess some poor chump. Then this asshole angel pops up outta nowhere, tells me now's a great time to hop on down to proselytize to the guy I just saved, and I'm like, 'Fuck you, what's religion gotta do with this?' so we get into an argument and I smite him, too."

"You smote an _angel_."

"With _science_."**

-oOo-

The Bentley sped into Soho in record time, Aretha Franklin's 'Princes of the Universe' blaring from the stereo. It came to a screeching stop before Aziraphale's bookshop. Crowley practically vaulted from his seat and through the front door in one continuous, sinuous motion.

"Angel!" he called. "I need a favor!"

Crowley was still shaken from the revelation that bees had invaded his flat; so shaken that he assumed there were no others in the shop when he detected no human presence. It was an unpleasant surprise, then, when he discovered that the sole angelic being in the shop was not his Angel, but some hipster douche. Crowley's fists clenched and shook at the prospect of confrontation when the figure came out from the back room, though he managed to keep his face impassive save for a quirk of the brow above his shades.

"Mr Fell's out for a walk," the other angel said. "He'll be back in a sec."

"And who are you supposed to be?"

Douchey-looking angel shrugged. "His intern or some such bullshit."

"...And you realize you're an angel."

"So they tell me. Angels and magic are fake, though. It's all just science we don't understand yet."

Crowley rolled his eyes behind his shades. "Let me reword that. You're currently an entity that is commonly referred to as an angel."

"_Yes_. I got wings, don't I?"

"Right. So you're an angel, and you know that I'm a demon." Crowley gestured between the two of them. "Smiting? Righteous holy fire?"

Douchey angel narrowed his eyes. "Demons are fake too."

"Are you kidding me. We're really going to play this semantics game?"

"I ain't saying _you _aren't real, just that angels are bullshit and demons are bullshit, so what's it matter that both of us are members of bullshit factions that're supposed to hate each other when bullshit plus bullshit is still fucking bullshit."

Crowley was impressed. Both his eyebrows rose, and he grinned.

The angel continued on with his rant. "Shits're just piling up one on top a the other. Good and evil are subjective things! I sure didn't sign up for this, and I don't like it that everyone suddenly wants me to be some holy warrior on account of I died and sprouted wings." He paused for a second. "I'd smite you if you were a hippie, though. Fuck hippies."

Bloody fucking yes. "I like you, kid."

* * *

*He was particularly fond of dense tomes of some historical importance; particularly those that could be weaponized either through their contents, i.e. Sun Tzu's The Art of War, or their sheer physical heft, i.e. Jonathan Sassacre's Heartening Text of Scientific Sensibility and Theoretical Postulates, a 50,000 page monstrosity that was not heartening at all. One might, as a matter of fact, call it daunting.

**Aziraphale got the feeling that Eridan did not actually know what science was, nor did he know that it wasn't a thing that could be weaponized in such a way. Then again, he seemed to be able to make things be what he wanted them to be through sheer force of will. This was in accordance with the reality-bending way of powerful supernatural beings beyond the warp and weft of the laws of the universe and also small children playing make-believe.


	4. Chapter 4

**A Brief History of Cultural Diversity (and Witches) in Lower Tadfield**

The village of Lower Tadfield was quintessentially English, not least of all because it had been the childhood home of Adam Young, the infernal antichrist, who was an extremely powerful supernatural being beyond the warp and weft of the laws of the universe, and who had also been a young child playing make-believe when he had deemed it to be so. Lower Tadfield had been an extension of Adam's aura when he had been a boy, and remained so in his adulthood despite his efforts to keep his powers under control*. When Adam grew up, so did Lower Tadfield.

For years, while the ethnic makeup of the UK naturally changed, in Lower Tadfield they remained the same: everyone was 100% White Anglo-Saxon**. Adam was not any more racist than the average English child, but he was a product of the media, and the media at that time presented all the heroes and the important people in England, especially in the suburbs and countryside, as whiter than white bread with the crusts cut off.***

Eventually, Adam and the Them left for college or vocational training. They dropped Wensleydale off at the Imperial College and it was then that Adam first stepped onto a busy London street and saw an England he did not recognize. "It's because it's London," he thought, because London got invaded by extraterrestrials every once in a while. In the way that Godzilla attacked only Tokyo on a regular basis and not, say, a fishing village in Hokkaido, brown people in England were only to be found in London and not in a little town like Lower Tadfield. That was that, and Adam was content with keeping the worlds separate.

Adam and Pepper were not as academically inclined as Wensley (and Brian even less so - he went to train as a policeman), and so found themselves in attendance at the Greater Tadfield Community College. Pepper made other friends, some of whom came from little towns on the other side of Greater Tadfield, and when she visited them, she noticed that, small as they were, their towns had Blacks and Asians and Irish and Continental Europeans, too. Having known about Adam's abilities for a long time, she grew suspicious.

"How come Lower Tadfield doesn't have any cultural diversity?" she asked one day. "Why is it that every time someone moves out, the family that moves in is exactly the same?"

"How should I know? It seems to me," Adam said sagely, "It seems to me that a certain type of people like living in Lower Tadfield."

Pepper put her hands on her hips and looked at him in the way that girlfriends do when their boyfriends are being stupid. "And it's nothing to do with you and the type of people _you_ think would like it here?"

This gave Adam pause. He breathed in for a beat and thought about London and Greater Tadfield and those other places that were outside of his immediate sphere of influence, and he said, "You know Pep, I reckon it very well could be."

Adam had thought since before he came of age that it wasn't right for him to shape the world however he wanted it. For one, that was how a child would go about doing things, and Adam was not a child any longer. Even though it was hard and sometimes he didn't want to, adults had to deal with the world as it really was. It also wasn't fun if people behaved only in the ways he thought they should, because then he would be missing out on all the ideas they could have come up with on their own. Adam's meddling produced only things that Adam could have thought up, and while he was an imaginative person, it wasn't the same as enjoying the fruits of the unfettered imaginations of millions of other creative types.

Reining his influence back was hard, though. He'd already squashed his aura as compact as he could without having to devote constant attention to it, and besides, he didn't want to completely change the quaint character of Lower Tadfield into a London borough; that would have been too much. So, Adam thought, why didn't he just change his mind about the types of people who might like to buy a house here? Why didn't he just change his mind about what kinds of people could be considered very English?

In having that thought, Adam had already changed his mind, and thus reality. And that was the beginning of Lower Tadfield's diversification.

A Tandoori opened up next to the pub, followed by a Chinese take-away soon after. Other ethnicities took up residence in the years that followed. The original residents of Lower Tadfield reacted to the change in demographics in a very suburban way. That is, if their new neighbors' children appeared properly fed and clothed, and if their lawns were neatly trimmed, then they were welcome.****

An oversight in Adam's part was that, in removing the restrictions on what sorts of people were allowed to move in, he also opened the gate to witches.

Anathema Device-Pulsifer, being the town's original witch, was very much aware of this change. Lower Tadfield was, to a witch, an infinite well of magical energies. Adam was the focal point, but his constant presence throughout the years had imbued the town itself with a life of its own. Adam's cast-off energies had become the _genius loci_ of Lower Tadfield, and would remain long after his physical life had passed.

With the town's protective spirit no longer preventing other witches from entering, they flooded in. This issue was never brought up to Adam since most of the witches meant no harm. Many of them weren't even powerful enough to _know_ they were witches; one day they just found themselves having the intense urge to visit… somewhere, threw a tack on a map blindfolded, had it magically land on Lower Tadfield, and went. The ones who did mean harm were automatically rebuffed by one of Adam's myriad other protective barriers, or else by Anathema herself, because someone had to be vigilant, and not in the way the now-defunct Witchfinder Army was. Nevertheless, Lower Tadfield now boasted the highest per capita instances of witchcraft in all of England, if not the world.

Anathema had never joined a coven despite the wealth of opportunities available to her. She was, however, fond of the three-member coven next door; Jade Harley in particular. Jade, like Anathema, was a very sensible witch. She believed in things like organic gardening, fixing her own car, and always carrying at least five communications devices on her at all times: a phone, a laptop, a pager, another phone, and a scrying mirror, _at least_.

The other members of the coven consisted of Feferi Peixes, Jade's school friend, and Damara Megido, who flew in from halfway across the globe to show up at their doorstep one day and say, "Space, Time, Life. Three, is destiny."

And none of the three were white. Lower Tadfield had certainly come a long way.

* * *

* Sometimes he leaked. Pepper joked that they ought to make maxi pads for that.

** Not exactly Protestant, however.

*** Even in 2011 this was going on. "We just don't have ethnic minorities involved," said a TV producer. "It wouldn't be the English village with them. It just wouldn't work." He had a point in that the English countryside is, by and large, still very much a white majority. Though nowadays even the residents of rural England would say that it's just not England without a local curry house.

**** The way suburbanites size up new neighbors can be illustrated using an accumulative points system where the goal is to score at least 100 points in order to be deemed acceptable company. Some point values are, for example: being non-Christian -20 points, not speaking English -30 points, having an immaculate lawn +50 points. It should be noted that +50 is the highest amount of points one can earn for a single quality, and only proper lawncare offers this point value.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale had gone on a walk to clear his head. He could have just magicked his confusion away, but he'd "gone native", as other angels often said of him. He'd gotten into the habit of doing many things the human way. The walk served a dual purpose, as it allowed him to bring back lunch from his favorite curry restaurant. Yes, eating was also a "native" thing to do, but they had such nice vindaloo.

Manning the cash register today was one Karkat Vantas, basement-dwelling geek and aspiring romance novelist. Karkat had long ago perfected an expression that was not so much ennui as "fed up with the world's continuous bullshit", and it was this look which he wore as he stared dispassionately at Aziraphale while the angel slowly perused the lunch menu.

"Relationship problems?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Your boyfriend giving you any grief? Guy's kind of a prick."

"Oh, no! Just… regular problems, if you will."

Karkat shrugged, which was quite a feat considering that he had his arms crossed above the counter and his head was resting on his hands. Aziraphale supposed it was Karkat's way of appearing sagely and non-threatening, inviting others to unleash their woes upon him. However, the effect was ruined by Karkat's being Karkat, which was, as Crowley often put it, a shouty little bastard*.

"Er, I'll have-"

"The usual. I know."

"Oh, well, yes. I'll have that, if you don't mind."

Karkat made no move to write down the order. Aziraphale glanced between the paper menu and the pad that Karkat most definitely was not using to write down any orders.

"Ahem." Aziraphale tried once more. "I'll have the usual."

Karkat glanced toward the swinging door to the kitchen. "Yeah, chef's on it. I sent in your order when I saw you coming down the street."

"Oh, that's wonderful! Thank you very much." What a pleasant surprise, Aziraphale thought. And Crowley said chivalry was dead!

"No prob. It'll be out in a sec _if a certain lardass would get a move on it!_"

"Go to medical school!" the chef shouted from inside the kitchen.

Karkat responded without even looking back, "Shut up and make the goddamned curry, dad!"

Ah, yes. The Vantas family was lively as usual. Crowley was of the opinion that the rage-filled shouting infused an extra zest to the food; Aziraphale rather thought it was the undercurrent of genuine caring that harmonized the flavors and gave it that special kick.

The rest of the transaction went much smoother. The food arrived, Aziraphale paid, and he was out the door with only a surly grunt-and-wave from Karkat. He only noticed halfway back to the bookshop that the Vantases had packed an order for two.

How considerate they were! Besides his unhealthy fascination with subpar literature, Karkat really was a Very Nice Boy. This small act of kindness significantly bolstered Aziraphale's spirits to the point where he thought himself prepared to face another round of stilted conversation with his smite-happy, possibly genocidal intern.

He was not, however, prepared to deal with Crowley and Eridan's budding friendship. This was what he heard when he opened the door to the back room:

"I admire Caligula, actually. Reports of his insanity were greatly exaggerated."

"Knew the guy. You're right; he wasn't that bad. _Creative_."

Aziraphale had also known Emperor Gaius, and while he hadn't been the worst human the angel had met, he still wasn't a very good one. He definitely wasn't someone an angel should look up to in any way. Crowley's morbid fascination with imperial trainwrecks was a given by now, and it was socially acceptable, what with him being a demon and all that entailed. Aziraphale began to wonder if he shouldn't start considering Eridan as a demon who just happened to have angelic powers.

On the bright side, it could have been much worse. They could have tried to smite each other. They could have destroyed his bookshop. That a first time meeting between an angel and a demon did not result in discorporation and/or permanent death and/or an exorbitant amount of property damage was considered exceedingly rare. That they were sat around enjoying a pot of tea together must constitute some sort of miracle.

"Lotsa folk forget his public works projects and shit," Eridan said.

"Well, sure, there's that. But it's the orgies that first caught your attention, eh?" Crowley gave Eridan a friendly nudge with his elbow. "Am I right or am I right?"

"Nothing wrong with an emperor enjoying some fine-ass bitches…"

Aziraphale was very easy-going for an angel, but there were some things even he wouldn't stand for. The elder angel purposely sighed loudly to interrupt the blasphemous conversation.

Crowley turned to him with a grin. "Hey, Angel."

"Yes, hello. I see you two have met."

Anyone who had known Aziraphale for long, or was just sensitive about these things, would have picked up on his lack of 'my dear's and other antiquated Britishisms that spoke to how low his reserves of patience were becoming. Eridan was neither of those, and he said, bluntly, "Didn't peg you as being kinky enough to shack up with a demon. Does Above know about this?"

Crowley hiss-snorted in amusement. Aziraphale took three deep breaths to calm himself** and then placed the curry take-away on the table. With his normal beatific smile on his face, he said, "Care to join me for lunch?" After all, the portions were generous, and what was meant for two could easily feed three.

"Vindaloo?" Crowley asked, brows perking up in anticipation.

"Extra spicy."

"Did they shout?"

"About medical school, even."

"Good. I swear it doesn't taste right if they don't shout over the food."

* * *

"I see it! They're… eating… spaghetti! The Prime Minister and his wife are eating spaghetti!"

In Lower Tadfield, in a house like any other, three witches stood in their kitchen doing very witchy things.

Jade bit her lip as she wondered exactly how to word her concerns. "Fef," she said to her excitable friend, "I think your scrying would be clearer if you took the cuttlefish out of the bowl."

Feferi glanced up at her coven and back down to the mirrored bowl filled with saltwater and colorful cuddle-friends. Cuttlefish normally did not make good pets, but Feferi was a witch, and a Witch of Life, at that. She'd never had a pet die on her yet, including her many prized cuttlefish that were only supposed to live for two years. She's had them for fifteen.

"But they're my familiars. I can't just leave them out."

"Maybe you could, I don't know, put them in a bowl to the side?"

"But they're my _familiars_, Jade. My _babies_!"

"Scrying for babies," Damara said. She leaned back on the kitchen counter and took a drag from her cigarette. "I teach you kill through mirror."

"No killing!" Jade and Feferi shouted together.

Damara laughed, which for her was a quiet rasp. "Is joke. Mirror good. Watch old man fuck wife like dog."

Jade threw up her hands and walked out of the kitchen. "Whatever. Spy on an orgy for all I care.*** I'm going to talk to Rose."

"'Kay! Say hi to her for me! Oh, and tell her I want one of her Squiddle plushies! In fuchsia!"

"Mm," she replied.

Jade had taken six steps up the stairs when she heard Damara call after her, "Rose sweet girl. Damara masturbate when think of Rose, let Rose borrow schoolgirl uniform for tentacle rape."

"Ugh."

In Lower Tadfield, in a house like any other, three witches went about doing very witchy things. One went upstairs to Skype with a witch friend in New York, and it was this action which would lead to The Apocalypse 2.0 landing in England.

* * *

* Aziraphale wouldn't put it in those terms. He would instead say that he didn't feel as if he could trust relationship advice from someone who enjoyed bodice-rippers as much as Karkat did.

** Yet more proof that he had gone native, since angels don't need to breathe. Demons don't, either. Crowley had been trying to convince Aziraphale that since they were both so fond of breathing when they didn't need to, they should invest in oxygen bars. Flavored air! Rich douchebags ripe for corruption! Alas, Aziraphale went the way of environmental advocacy.

*** Damara, being a Witch of Time, could scry only events in the past or distant future. Unbeknownst to Jade, she had indeed spied upon many an orgy, including those thrown by Caligula.

* * *

**A/N: **

Fun facts that are totally not important to the story and will probs never be mentioned again:

Karkat's parents are Anjali and Venkat. (Why yes, I did give them 6-letter troll names.) His mom, Anjali, is also very shouty. She used to be new-age-y and was really into horoscopes, hence Karkat being named after the constellation Karkata (Cancer) because he was born in June.

Feferi grew up in Cascade, Seychelles. She scooped up her cuttlefish buds there, and they've been with her ever since. Cuttlefish on a plane. Cuttlefish in a dorm room. And now cuttlefish in the suburbs.


	6. Chapter 6

Hell has Internet. Of course it does. It's especially prone to cutting out just as you're doing something important, randomly eats emails, and on some days has no access to anything except geriatric porn and very badly programmed MMOs. It's also heavily restricted when it comes to interacting with humans, and is generally only a thing the higher-ups have.

But all in all, Hell has Internet where Heaven does not. This was not the deciding factor in Sollux Captor's becoming a demon – he hadn't known of the situation beforehand, but it was one of the reasons he hadn't yet defected to the other side.*

Instead, he slowly bided his time, worked a thankless job as Duke Hastur's IT guy, and then hacked the Satanic Express Point Perks databases to get himself what he thought would be a cushy apprenticeship on Earth. Bad though he was at being demonic in most ways that mattered, Sollux had still survived in Hell far longer than anyone else in his pre-death IT department, all of whom had been annihilated by a gas leak and that asshole Bob from accounting who couldn't have picked somewhere else to smoke, so it was a given that he had the type of cunning and underhanded wiles to maybe lie a bit about having Hastur's permission to be here.**

Here was his new boss AJ's sunroom, which was now a tropical paradise. Lush greenery, flowers, bees… Fruits were even starting to form on some of the trees, thanks to the bees' tireless pollination efforts. Sollux used his newfound demonic powers to fuse his two favorite pastimes – computing and apiculture. The result was giant purple demon bees whose hives served as organic servers for the massive computing station Sollux had built out of parts he'd found in Crowley's flat. The computer's core was Crowley's PC; his television and his game consoles were in there somewhere as well. The remains of the blowtorch he'd used to threaten the flowers were probably kicking around in there too.

AJ was gone for the moment, but Sollux was cautious about the possibility of there being a trap laid out for him if he opened the sunroom door, so he remained here, alone but for his bees.

A passing bee noted its master's melancholy and hovered close, offering Sollux the pollen balls it had collected on its back legs. Sollux shook his head no, to which the dejected bee spun a figure-eight and buzzed consolingly.

"Bees are the best," Sollux said to his bees and himself. He carefully cupped the bee in his palms and nuzzled the fuzzy purple bum with his cheek. The bee gave a happy buzz, glad to be of use to its master.

* * *

"Explain that to me again, dear."

Crowley hastily swallowed one last mouthful of vindaloo. "It's like this," he said, trying condense his story and simplify his request. "My home is infested with demonic bees. The easiest and most effective way to get them out is with a bit of angel mojo."

"Which would be me? You know I don't like smiting."

"And what do you know – you happen to be hosting a smiting champ here. I could take Eridan instead. Fancy some demon extermination, kid?"

Eridan poked at his curry. He had seemed subdued as soon as bees were mentioned. "I dunno," he said. "Bees are harmless, aren't they? Wouldn't be right if I just blasted them."

"They were summoned by a demon. I'm pretty sure these are monster bees."

"But you didn't see them," Aziraphale tried to argue.

"Oh, monster bees is totally different. Sure, I'll smite 'em."

"All right!" Crowley slithered up from his seat. "Let's go!"

Eridan had followed Crowley out of the back room and the two were well on their way out the bookshop when Aziraphale bustled over to them, protesting. "Now wait just one minute, Crowley! Your apprentice, troublesome as he might be, is still just a poor boy…"

"Nothing poor about this one, Angel. He's sneaky."

"Well… Well it doesn't have to devolve into smiting quite so soon! Haven't you heard the phrase 'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'?"

It was Eridan who spoke up this time. "Why'd anyone even want to catch flies? Just kill 'em."

"It's not…!" The angel was becoming flustered. "It means, my dears, that things are often more easily accomplished when one uses a soft touch. People respond better to requests if you offer honey, not vinegar."

"Yeah, well piss and vinegar's all they'd get from me," Eridan grumbled.

Crowley smirked, but turned it down when he met his Angel's disapproving gaze. "I've tried, Angel."

"No you haven't. I know when you lie, dear. You probably offered to buy him dinner while holding a spray bottle of holy water behind your back."

This was entirely true. Crowley could do nothing but act chagrined.

"Regardless, I'm coming along to make sure nothing untoward happens to the boy," Aziraphale said. He planted himself firmly in the passenger seat of the Bentley.

* * *

Hive I, which was connected to the human Internet, was running a game.

"Argh! Festering dick pustules!" Sollux's partner shouted through the comm.

"Jesus, KK, you suck so much at this. I told you they were going to ambush you if you went down the left path." Sollux's avatar easily sniped the enemies from afar.

"Shut up, assmunch. As soon as I revive, we hit their base."

Sollux grunted his assent.

Hive II, which maintained a steady connection to Hell's Internet, was busy hacking Satan's secretary's memos. Every once in a while, Sollux's makeshift desktop would chime as a new memo was cracked and downloaded. Sollux had long since grown used to multitasking, so he easily skimmed the new documents while simultaneously shooting up the enemy base. Most of the memos weren't of any importance anyway, and they all read the same: Satan would like to remind his faithless minions that the break room is not to be used for taking breaks, but for breaking bones, etc. etc.

Ting! **Satan would like to remind his faithless minions that the Woegothics are due to complete their transatlantic summoning circle by midnight tonight, Greenwich Mean Time. Please be prepared to Raise Hell.**

"Whoa, what the—" Sollux adjusted his dual-colored glasses and proceeded to re-read this strange new memo.

"Hey lispy douchelord, pay attention, would ya? They're gaining on us!"

"Hold on to your frilly panties, KK. Something's come up that—"

The sunroom door burst open. Sollux dropped his controller and stood up so fast that his headset ripped out of the plug and dropped to the ground. His eyes widened as he stared at the two angels – angels – that stood behind Crowley and were about to smite him into a million nerdy pieces. His bees, sensing their master's fear, huddled together in a buzzing mass behind him.

Karkat's voice came over muted on the speakers. "—lux? Holy shit, Sollux? Are you there?"

* * *

*Regardless of the usefulness of the info he'd gathered on the weaknesses in Hell's network infrastructure and how best to hack Satan, the angels wouldn't be able to use it because none of them understood computers at all. The other reason Sollux didn't defect is that angels are trained to smite on sight.

**Meanwhile, in Hell, Duke Hastur was shouting for his IT guy – the only one remaining from his torture-purge two weeks prior. The Internet was down again and his printer was jammed. Hastur raged; he needed to get his League of Legends fix NOW, and also, how was he supposed to submit his forms to the Forms Bureau if he couldn't get anything to print? It was just as he was about to go down to the racks to see if he couldn't find another IT guy from the ranks of the newly deceased that a message pinged on his computer. It said, "thii2 ii2 a viiru2, a22hole," and immediately his printer kicked into high gear, spewing paper all over the room. The sounds of Rick Astley began to play, and when Hastur reached to turn it down, the speakers automatically boosted to 100%. He had no idea there were so many subwoofers hidden in his office.


	7. Chapter 7

Neither angel in the exterminating party had a flaming sword. Angels nowadays didn't get flaming swords until they were at a certain level, meaning not until they had curried enough favors with their superiors and done enough "angel things" like performing miracles or venerating the Lord through song. Because they wouldn't let him have one, Eridan decided swords were stupid and he'd rather have a gun, but seeing as those were banned in Heaven, he broke off the blade from the little regulation dagger they'd given him and glued a stick to it to turn it into a wand. This was his Science Boomstick.

Aziraphale, of course, had "lost" his sword.

The exterminating party stood in Crowley's flat, in front of the sunroom door. Crowley was in the front, flanked by the angels on either side.

"All right. Okay. I'm kicking in this door."

"Do it," Eridan said, holding his scientific wand at the ready. "I'll cover you."

The heel of Crowley's slick Italian leather boot slammed down on the door just like in the movies. Perhaps with the aid of a bit of magic, the once-barricaded door burst open perfectly just like they did in said movies.

Suddenly, bees! Eridan attempted to level his wand in the direction of his opponents, the bees. They were too scattered, and their movements too quick. Almost immediately, they sensed him and fled behind the demon, who was… oddly familiar.

Bzz. BzzZZzzz. The bees were shivering as they clung to themselves and their master. "D-don't hurt the bees," the very familiar-looking demon managed to say.

Bzzzz! At his words, the bees flew to the front even as they were shaking. _Don't hurt our master!_ They formed a frightened bee-shield in front of the demon at the same time that the demon was trying to herd them back behind him. The demon and his bees were both determined to sacrifice themselves for the other.

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Aziraphale burst out, "Demon bees, really! There's nothing evil about them at all!"

After being witness to this scene, Eridan and Crowley were both in grudging agreement.

"But they're still leaving my flat, and the flowers, too. I'm serious. This is a green-only zone."

"Honestly, Crowley, if they bother you that much, your apprentice and his bees can come stay with me."

The two began to bicker like an old married couple, which is exactly what they were*. Eridan turned his attention to the bee-demon, who was still clutching an armful of giant fuzzy bees to his chest.

"Hey," he said, "weren't you one of the IT guys? Captor, was it?"

"Oh hey," said possibly-Captor, "it's you, Sales Douche. I was almost sad when they said you'd died. Almost."

Eridan had met IT guy Captor down by the water cooler once or twice. He was very sarcastic; a worthy opponent for snark-offs. Although he'd just been insulted, Eridan figured he'd let it slide for once, seeing as the other party was still shaky from his near-smiting. They struck up a stilted conversation like two co-workers who hadn't seen each other since one of them stole the other's sandwich as a prank only to find out that the other had died the following day. Which was exactly what they were.

"So how'd you die?" Eridan asked.

"Gas leak in the IT department."

"Wow, that's dumb."

"Not any dumber than being erotically asphyxiated to death by a murderous ex-girlfriend."

"Best orgasm of my life."

"Eew. Gross."

During the chaos of the confrontation, it was forgotten that Sollux had been playing a game before the exterminating party crashed in. It remained forgotten in the aftermath until shouting flooded the room from the speakers.

"Sweet barbecued baby back Jesus ribs. Fuck me with them. Sollux, are you _actually dead_?"

"Oh shit."

* * *

Months in the past, but not many…

Miss Rose Lalonde had just gotten back from a book signing tour. It was just a small one along the eastern coast of the United States where she lived and worked, but already there were requests for her to do a larger one spanning across the country and perhaps even internationally. The meteoric rise in popularity of her first novel, Complacency of the Learned, had been a surprise to all. Rose had gotten fanfiction, fanart, love letters, and death threats all within the span of a year, and it was predicted to get worse in the coming months leading up to the release of the second volume in the series.

Her English professors had said she'd never make it; that there would be no audience for books with such moral ambiguity, even outright villainy, from its heroes. They criticized her writing as purple prose – Rose scoffed at the idea of this being a bad thing – and said her plots were like the plaintive mewling death cries of Dostoyevsky, Lovecraft, and JK Rowling's three-way mutant lovechild that should never have suffered to live. Perhaps not in those terms exactly, but that was what they meant. She was sure of it.**

Well suck it, professors! Rose was a Lady and would never say this out loud, but she certainly thought it in the safety of her own mind. The novel that had sprung from Harry Potter slashfic was an international bestseller. The future held nothing but success upon success for Miss Lalonde, and she intended to celebrate this by having a drink and…

…chatting with Internet friends. While alone in her New York apartment.

Alone.

Utterly alone.

The truth of the matter was that Rose, while brilliant, was horrible with social niceties. It was perhaps _because_ she was so brilliant that she had these troubles, since she so easily recognized faults in others and felt the need to point them out in order to set her friends on the right path. In most cases, they weren't her friends anymore, not after that. It didn't help that she had a strong interest in the occult and had at one point been That Goth Girl in high school.

Rose had been odd for as long as she could remember. The quiet, bookish girl with an uncanny gift for seeing things became the sharp, scathing teenager who jabbed at the weaknesses she saw became the mysterious author who wrote of the secrets she had seen. Rose Lalonde was a witch – a special type of witch like Agnes Nutter or, to a lesser extent, her descendent Anathema. Rose Lalonde was a Seer.

The gift of Sight was not like any other witch's scrying. The Sight came naturally, without any tools or incantations; it had reach and power beyond any other methods of divination, but the cost was that the witch herself could not choose what she saw or when she saw it or even the manner in which things were seen. Agnes Nutter's psyche had been adrift in Time; she had constantly had extremely detailed visions of the future – all at once! – to the point where she had become stark, raving mad, especially since her visions surfaced as memories. Anathema's Sight was much more limited in scope, but thus much more manageable – she saw auras, mainly. Souls, the essences of beings, who a person _really_ was, whether good or evil, filled with love or hatred. And Rose? She saw in dreams and in an abstract, almost artistic manner. Light and shadows, paths to victory and defeat.

To the untrained eye, Complacency of the Learned was just a book, and its main character, Calmasis, was a bit of a poofter. To those in the know, Calmasis' androgyny was clearly representing a being of Angelic stock; the character's moral ambiguity perhaps hinting at a symbolic union of Angel and Fallen. Calmasis' plot to overthrow the wizards, then, was meant to prophesy the overthrow of the Host and the coming of the End of Days. Or maybe the Wizard Zazzerpan was actually Satan and _he_ was the one being overthrown… Or could he be both God and Satan? Another king-like being entirely?

It was something like that. Rose was no Agnes Nutter. She wasn't quite so insane as to begin to understand her own prophecies at that level.***

At this moment, however, Rose was awaiting her friends, none of whom were online yet. To pass the time, she idly flipped through her copy of the Grimoire of the Zoologically Dubious, a Woegothic encyclopedia of Elder Gods and other beings that reside beyond the boundaries of the present Universe. This was one of the books she'd kept from her stint as That Goth Girl, back when she'd been a member of the not-really-Satanic cult.**** Rose was not particularly religious, but if she were to claim a religion, she would still consider herself a Woegoth. It was the only religion that was completely factually based.

There _were_ Elder Gods, and they _were_ coming to devour reality – the entire Universe, Heaven and Hell and everything in between, and other Universes besides. In the grand scheme of things, since the Universe is so small, and Heaven and Hell so small alongside it, there are no such things as eternal salvation or damnation. Our Heaven, our Hell, are but one set of an infinite number of Heavens and Hells, little snow globes strung up through the chaos of Space-Time, easily popped like the fragile bubbles they are.

Where Rose now differed from her former creed was in attitude toward what was to come. The Woegothics found morbid joy in entropy; in the eventual triumph of chaos over order. They sought to help bring about the end, or to wallow in the darkness and crow about how it was all so inevitable. Rose had once been like the latter, but now, having grown up, she found that she rather _liked_ the world and wanted it to last as long as possible.

It was unfortunate, then, that as she was re-reading her grimoire, her magical core was gripped by the shadowy tendrils of a being too horrid for human minds to comprehend. It was Nyarlathotep, formerly of the Elder Gods that resided beyond the Furthest Ring, now biding his time as a Duke of Hell. In that instant, the Creeping Grimdarkness pushed itself into Rose's body and hid there, waiting for the right moment to unleash Chaos upon the world.

* * *

The present. Rainbow Falls, New York.

Rose smiled as she took the call. She smiled, and the Grimdarkness within her smiled as well.

"Hello, Jade."

* * *

* If marriage is defined as a binding social contract between two persons to support each other in sickness and in health, etc., then the Arrangement could be construed as a marriage of sorts. Crowley and Aziraphale would then be the oldest and longest-lasting marriage still in existence in all of Creation. It's been postulated by their acquaintances, particularly the Them in their downtime, that maybe this knowledge ought to be made available to Fundamentalists so that suddenly gay marriage wouldn't seem like that big of a deal.

** Their exact words were "interesting", "impressive variety of vocabulary, but some words too obscure for the target audience", and, at the worst, "needs improvement". Rose was hypercritical of herself and tended to project this attitude onto others. This was especially true for her mother, whom Rose insisted was a passive-aggressive manipulative bitch and master of psychological warfare – a description that anyone who'd spoken with either Miss Lalonde for more than ten minutes would agree was 100% accurate… of Rose.

*** She also put in more homosexual subtext than was strictly necessary or even accurate according to her visions. Years later, scholars would dissect the dialogue between the wizards Zazzerpan and Frigglish, arguing amongst each other over whether they had been lovers before Frigglish's untimely demise. Witches who'd taken the interpretation that Zazzerpan was Satan would wonder if this meant the Lord of Hell had been doing one of his Dukes, possibly Hastur, up the bum.

**** They were only Satanists in that they believed Satan was their founding member. The Woegothics also believed, correctly, that Satan was in cahoots with the Elder Gods, and that releasing Satan was the first step to inviting the Elder Gods to devour Existence.


End file.
